The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-08-09
midas STRANGERS.
AN AMERICANS VISIT TO THE
THUG OF NORTHERN INDIA.
A Man Who Kept No Count Of the
Lives He Took Above a Hundred, and
Another Who Confessed to Seven
Hundred Murders.
From the Philadelphia Press.

JABALPUR, INDIA, June, 1887. Well,
saws the landlord of our hotel, the half
way house" of the long journey from Bonn
bav to Calcutta, ''now that you've seen the
ruins of the Hindu citadel, and been over
the native cantonment, and visited the
temple on the hill yonder, and gone round
the marble rocks OF the Nerbuddha, there S
nothing left for you to see here except the
Thugs"
The grim name seems to strike upon ME
with a sudden chill often though | heard
il before: for it is one thing TO hear or read
about tn terrible strangers of the East,
and quite another thing to find oneself
unexpectedly face to face with them
Moreover, although | have already seen
ordinary murdererS by the score, in Siberian
chain gangs, West Indian penltentarles'
Brazilian prisons, Turkish and Syrian for
tresses. this is my first experience OF men
who turn murder itself into a religion, pray
devoutly for its success, and offer up heart
felt Thanksgiving to heaven when 1t IS
done.
AWAY we all three 90 accordingly, along
the broad, straight dusty highroad. which
Is fortunately shaded, to some extent rom
the burning sun by the vast banner-like
leaves OF the palm trees that stand rank like
soldiers along either side of the way, alter
mating with clumpS of feathery bamboos,
whose crested tips. taperng like gigantic
fishing poles, sway languidly in the morn
ing breeze.
As we pause for a moment TO admire the
beautiful little green paroquets that are fit
ting to and fro overhead with impish
screeches, a shril cry makes us spring aside
lust in time 10 avoid an enormous elephant
that comes tramping round bend of the
road with a perfect mountain of forage on
its back, while the SLIM sharp-featured
qlahout driver, whose brown limbs and
white robe make him look like a cigar
wrapped in paper, sits perched on its neck
and urges it on with AN occasional prod of
his short iron hook.
HISTORY OF THE THUGS.
"Who are these Thugs, anyhow asks
the American, as we move on again. Il
lust know that they're always numbering
people, and that's about all do know"
WELL said l. ''most of what | know
comes from Col. Slieman and Col. Meadows
TAYLOR who were the chief agents in put
ting them down. The original system. ages
ago was simply continual human sacrifice
to Kali, the goddess of murder, from whom
Calcutta (Kali-Kuttah, or kali's Temple)
took its name The theory was that the
earth was overpeopled, and that Kali's
servants, the Thugs, had to clear off the
supcrfluous population by little ludicious
numbering every now and then. So when
place, they strangled him with a silk hand
korchief, and then buried him; and this
they called the good work.
81 wonder what they'd call a bad work,
then" muttered my companion.
''Well, this went on for ages upon ages,
without anyone having the least suspicion
of it. Men kept disappearing here and
there, and nobody knew how. At first the
murders were simply a religious rite, with
out any afterthought of plumber, but after
ward they began to combine robbery with
murder. and to pick out as victims those
who were worth plundering. However, the
English had been in India for years
before anyone dreamed that 'Thuggee'
existed At last q Thug chief, being
under sentence for some crime, be
trayed his comrades TO save his own
life, and then TIE whole story came
out and the Thugs were seized and i'm
priSoned At first the British commissioner
of the district where the discovery was
made wouldn't believe that all these horrors
could have been going on so long without
being found out. but when the old chief dug
up thirteen skeletons on the very spot
where the commissioners tent was pitched
he began to change his mind. But here we
are at the place
We halt suddenly before a tall gray,
gloomy building, at the door of which an
nounce myself as a newspaper correspond
IL.
the Hindoo janitor looks with no small Won
der at Mrs. Ker as she enters and asks
whether the bib Logtte Qady) is u CORE
spondent too.
On the other side of the road stands a
high bamboo palisadc, above which peer the
grass matches of number of tiny native
huts The one narrow entrance of this en-
closure is guarded by magnificent Sikh
soldier-tall. strong and shapely as u bronze
statue of Herculcs-whose bold, swarthy
face and keen black eyes look very pic
turesque beneath his crimson turban. After
exchanging a word or two with our con
ductor, he steps back with u military salute
to let us pass IN, and the next moment we
are standing amid the most formidable gang
of murderers upon the face of the earth.
The theory that every man wears on his
countenance the stamp of his nature is true
only within certain limits Many of the
great criminals whom | have seen bore in
their faces a terrible warning Of what they
were, but with the Thugs of Jabalpur it is
not So These human vampires who now
gather round me. every one of whom has
taken more lives than any public execu
toner in Europe, are to the outward eye a
set of quiet, slouching, meagre old men, who
might be a gang of beggars, group OF
harmless village folks, party of superan-
nuated native workmen, or anything on
earth but what they really are.
THE sTRANGLER's AWFUL WORK.
'That's the chief whispers my guide
pointing TO a small, lean gray beard with O
white turban, who is sitting before the near
est hut, rocking child on his knee, and
strolling its thin little brown face with the
hand that has shed the blood of his fellow
men like water.
'Ask him." reioin J. show mary murders
he has committed"
A momentary CLEAN of cunning wrinkles
in the sunken eyes. The old tiger il
evidently suspicious, and stands on his
guard.
II cannot tell" he answers, with an in.
difference which, under such circumstances
has in it something indescribably CHASTITY
II didn't keep count of them beyond a hun.
dredm
Pretty WE'LL" mutters the Inspector
''but Col, Taylor's prisoner, Amer Ali
owned to 700"
ale must have been nice young man,
that .imeer Ali" Observed "You remem-
Der his saying We finally decided TO muir
der the men directly after our evening
payers"
just then noticed that the line of hovel
has gap in it every here and there, as if a
hut had fallen or been pulled down, and the
Inspector tells me, with look of unwonted
awe upon his bold bluff face, that whenever
one OF these wretches dies his house is in
stantly razed to the ground, as if TO effacc
his very memory from the earth.
'Now, before we go" says | to our con.